<img title="Nusrat Durrani" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2017/jan/Nusrat-Durrani.jpg" alt="Nusrat Durrani" /> Nusrat Durrani
From producing Madly &mdash; an omnibus of six love stories among which was Anurag Kashyap&rsquo;s Clean Shaven &mdash; to creating Rebel Music series, MTV&rsquo;s acclaimed documentary series on musicians and artists practising in areas of conflict, Nusrat Durrani is an agent of love. But, make no mistake; Durrani is not referring to reductive ideas of love but a global need for compassion &mdash; towards lovers, across borders and even for animals.
Mumbai folk will get a chance to quiz Durrani &mdash; Lucknow-born, based out of New York and the founder of MTV World &mdash; when he holds a masterclass at the Godrej India Culture Lab on January 27. Durrani will take audiences through new narratives of modern love across digital and social media platforms as an attempt &ldquo;to reverse the growing tide of hate in the world&rdquo;. We ask Durrani why he thinks stories on love are needed today like never before. Edited excerpts from the interview: The title of your masterclass, Love in the Time of Hate is direct and refers to two powerful emotions. What&rsquo;s in store for us? We live in a time of hate &mdash; the US elections where a leader of The Free World was elected after a campaign of xenophobia, misogyny and complete disdain for the environment; there is a negative portrayal of Syrian refugees; there are stories of terror and hate in India as well as injustice to minorities. In such a context, the subject of love has been covered ad nauseam, but the content out there is hackneyed and regurgitated. We tend to speak only of romantic love, which is a big aspect, no doubt, but love transcends this. There is love of the country, for animals, for your brothers. Love manifests itself in a variety of ways but our storytelling is one-dimensional. I want to expand the definition and make it an inclusive emotion and intellect. You have been working on MTV&rsquo;s yet-to-be-released TV series, We Are Lovers. How does it reaffirm your beliefs? I am not arrogant to think that anything I could say or do could effect changes, but we can do what&rsquo;s within our power. For instance, the depiction of love between young people, as shown on television, is trivialised, gamified and stripped of seriousness. We Are Lovers is a documentary about real people and covers relationships in a manner that is not seen in usually in mainstream television. Two boys falling in love is often exoticised or a 60-year-old woman falling in love with a far younger man is rarely depicted. However, We Are Lovers is not about sexuality, but about love stories. Across generations - Gen X and the millennials - do you think the notion of love, especially through social media, has changed? There is enormous technology that social media has to offer. Social media has magnified the power of love. [Across generations], however, the visceral power of love hasn&rsquo;t changed. I can&rsquo;t claim to be an expert on the subject with data to support my observations, but much of this is coming from having spent time with young people. I see that increasingly, the youth are post-sexual in a way. There is so much more openness in the world and it doesn&rsquo;t seem like a big deal if a Korean marries an American or if someone is straight on not. But, don&rsquo;t you think that the virtual space &ndash; especially Twitter and Facebook &ndash; has become a space of hate, verbal violence (that can lead to physical violence) and trolling? Every day, we read horror stories of life on social media. It&rsquo;s true that it can expose you to a vast ocean of people you could fall in love with, but there is also a dark side to this [getting catfished, for instance]. However, I believe that overall, the Internet is more positive than negative. The counter-revolution to all that hate is love. It may sound trite but it&rsquo;s true. The way to deal with narratives of rape is to create more tender love stories, for example. I do navigate through social media in my own way. I have a 16-year-old daughter and I take care not to put up photos of her. She was at the Women&rsquo;s March at Washington DC recently and I did post that, but not pictures of her birthday and so on. I don&rsquo;t want to impose a social media history on her and let her create her own. MTV gave the moniker to Gen X as the MTV Generation. In this decade, doesn&rsquo;t this new wave of love stories that you are proposing risk being viewed as a commercial branding of interpersonal relationships? There is no denying that MTV is a juggernaut in youth culture. But, storytelling is borne of passion and transcends the brand.

The founder of MTV World and a firm believer in the power of a good story, Nusrat Durrani on resisting global hatred

Nusrat Durrani: The counter-revolution is love

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The founder of MTV World and a firm believer in the power of a good story, Nusrat Durrani on resisting global hatred

Nusrat Durrani: The counter-revolution is love

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Nusrat Durrani: The counter-revolution is love

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